The present invention relates to the art of electrical connectors and, particularly, to an audio jack for conveniently and reliably mounting on a printed circuit board.
A jack normally includes an insulative housing and a plurality of terminals mounted in the housing. Each terminal usually has a contact portion for contacting a mating connector (e.g. a plug) and a mounting portion for securing the audio jack to an electronic device.
Such a conventional audio jack is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,919,052. In this prior art patent, a jack includes a plurality of terminals mounted in a casing. Each terminal has a contact portion and a flat mourting portion generally perpendicular to the contact portion. The mounting portion is maintained flush with a bottom cover plate for surface mounting on a printed circuit board. However, small distances between terminals are required in miniature electronic devices to minimize the overall sizes thereof. During a surface mounting process, unwanted solder bridges between adjacent mounting portions are prone to occur, resulting in short circuits. Furthermore, the surface-mounting method is troublesome and requires a high temperature, which tends to distort the printed circuit board.
This invention is directed to an improved audio jack having a locking means for resiliently abutting against circuit traces of a printed circuit board, which obviates distortion of the printed circuit board and formation of short circuits which otherwise might occur when the audio jack is soldered to the circuit board.
A main object of the invention is to provide a new and improved audio jack for conveniently interconnecting the audio jack with a printed circuit board.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an audio jack with a controlled normal force for retaining a mating plug.
An audio jack in accordance with the present invention comprises an insulating housing and a plurality of contacts received in the housing. The housing defines a longitudinal plug-insertion hole therethrough for receiving a mating plug. Each contact includes a base and a tail portion extending downwardly and inwardly from the base. The tail portion forms a contact tab on a distal end thereof for resiliently abutting against appropriate circuit traces on a top surface of a printed circuit board.
In use, the audio jack is retained between the circuit board and a portion of the electronic device, which downwardly presses the audio jack so that the contact tabs resiliently engage the appropriate circuit traces on the top surface of the printed circuit board. In this way, the audio jack is maintained in position on the circuit board without requiring solder to fix the contacts to the circuit traces.